120th Post

I don't know, I couldn't think of a title, and my dashboard says it's the 120th blog post today. So that's what I called it.

If anyone's at all interested, though, I did some writing over the weekend (and this past week) for a couple of contests on Arwen-Undomiel. For the first one (viewable here, I'm the one that says Meldawen) you were supposed to pick a LotR character and describe them. I thought it would have been interesting if everybody described the same character from a different viewpoint, but anyway, we had a variety of character descriptions. Mine was of Aragorn. And just as an aside - I do believe I won that particular contest. The awards have yet to be posted, but I got three first-place votes, a second-place and an Honourable Mention. So that was cool.

The second one is a Places contest, so you have to describe a place from the viewpoint of any character you desire. This particular place was Osgiliath, which was a little tricky, but still fun. This is my entry:

I Will Remember

Excerpt from the diary of Thelithil daughter of Gilorn, TA 1437, the fifteenth day of Yavannië.
They are coming. I hear them in sleep and waking, pounding upon the walls of our city, ravaging its white towers. My father curses the rebels, curses them for opposing King Eldacar, but I see only the destruction they wreak on my home – my home since I was but a child, since the day sixteen years ago my mother bore me.
For my birth day I receive nothing but this. Nothing but the sight of Osgiliath burning.
We are barricaded in the Great Hall, our last defense against the rebels grinding our beautiful city into the dirt, burning it. Perhaps two hundred, three hundred of us are left – others fled while they still could, before the rebels surrounded our city. We sit huddled in silence, hoping against hope for deliverance. We know it will not come. My father and his men sit by the King and his son, Prince Ornendil.
I sit by a window, a mere arrow slit, penning what I dearly hope are not my last written words in this world. Osgiliath is so sad…its towers are crumbled and fire and ash stain the white stone. Some still stand proud, but they are defaced by blood and half crumbled. Can this really be the city I loved, the streets I ran barefoot through as a child? I can see from the arrow slit a fountain, now dry and broken, that I met Thiristannen at once. I can see, just over a small rise, our house. We fled it when flames licked at the east gate of Osgiliath. What was once a pristine white city is now mottled grey and crimson and black, ash and blood and ruin. Can I remember it as it used to be…?
I will try.
My clearest memory is of years ago, when Father went up to the Dome of Stars and I went with him, and looked out the window. The city stretched below me, a maze of streets and fountains and walls and towers. It is like, I imagine, to what a city of the Elves would be. Graceful bridges span the river that cuts like a silver arrow through Osgiliath, many of them. Towers go so high I imagined, once upon a time, that they touched the clouds. What a capital city for mighty Gondor, once united but now divided. What a testament of grace and beauty, of strength. Even the majestic Minas Anor cannot compare, cannot meet with its seven levels and towering grandeur, the history that Osgiliath holds. What lies in store for our city? Will it fall into ruin? Will Gondorians a hundred years from now speak of Osgiliath as a legend, a memory crushed?
If I could do aught to prevent it, how I would do so with gladness…every stone, every arch of the masonry speaks to me of an ageless grace that no city could ever capture again. Even where the stones are imperfect they bear memories. Perhaps in ages of old a catapult hit there…armies clashed there. It has always withstood the threat of destruction.
But now?
I fear that the Osgiliath I love is fated to dissolve into nothing more than sad rubble, standing alone under moon and sun alike. No brisk chatter, merchants haggling and mothers scolding and lovers murmuring, filling it with life and love. Would it change into nothing but cold stone if we abandoned it? Would it be nothing but a name, something to remain ever in dusty history scrolls?
Not for me. For me Osgiliath will ever be what it was. A testament to the power and beauty of the Numenorians of old, a wistful lament to their downfall but a promise of hope for the future. My future.
I will not die here today. I must not. For if Osgiliath dies I must live, live to tell of its beauty to those who have not seen it. Those who perhaps will be born when it is no more. And may I forgive the rebels who trample it into the ground, forgive them for destroying the home I love. I love its every worn stone and archway. And I ever will, I ever will think fondly of it even when Osgiliath is but a name.
I will remember.

Bit of background for the confused - this was a point in history when Gondor's king ceased to be of pure Numenorian descent, so some of the kingdom rebelled and opposed him. Those loyal to the king made their last stand in Osgiliath, which was sort of the beginning of its downfall. (For the REALLY uninitiated, you know who you are, Osgiliath is the city Faramir takes Frodo and Sam to in TTT. You know, the sort of ruined one?) So it's really less of a description than it is a sort of...lament, but it works.

~Sil

"I'd love to see Southgate put together a drama team again. Just don't ask me to be in it."